Soundless Music: Seconds' Clock
by Merridian
Summary: He put down the cello. No music would come tonight, not with all the rain outside. And tomorrow would be exactly the same, wouldn't it? Finished.
1. And They Went Forward to Stay Nowhere

**Disclaimer: **Evangelion is owned by some smart folks.

**Author's Note:** Yes, it's been edited. I threw in a few scenes just to smooth things out for the long run. I realized that it wasn't finished by the time I wrote chapter 3, so I had to go back two chapters and rewrite a few sequences, edit in a few more. Oh well. Here's the finished chapter 1.

* * *

**To Begin:**

Somewhere onshore, a siren pierced the stagnant air. A breeze blew a power cable back and forth, scattering the pigeons that grappled it in their small feet. Civilian power shut down. A train stopped three stations short of its intended destination. The loudspeaker blared quiet monotone directions that faded easily into the bright sunlight of the June day.

A public pay phone was being used.

An ordinary-looking boy spied an ordinary-looking girl from across the street, but she disappeared in a gust of wind.

---

Months later, he would have to make a choice, and people would die.

---

Fifteen years prior, Antarctica would become but a memory in the minds of flood survivors and professors. Lots of people died.

One man would make it his mission to know what really happened.

One man would make it his mission to do it again.

And a bunch of people decided that they knew what was best for humanity.

---

Two millennia before Antarctica became a memory, a man died after being nailed to a plank of wood for suggesting that people try to be reasonable for once.

And a bunch of people decided that they knew what was best for humanity.

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**CHAPTER i : AND HE WENT FORWARD TO GO NOWHERE**

The sound of a cello permeated the still air. It was easily identified as being from an amateur; misplaced staccatos and uneven slurs, combined with the every-so-often problem with intonation, and a relative lack of overall phrasing and dynamics made for a relatively mediocre performance at best. Granted, Bach would probably be pounding his head on the table he wrote the piece on if he had had the chance to listen the performance when it was first composed, but seeing as how the music had survived four centuries—and for this particular manuscript, a worldwide catastrophe—Bach would probably adjust his attitude to that of reasonably smug self-satisfaction.

The music abruptly stopped. It was followed by a quiet curse. The sound of the drizzle outside was now audible, unrestricted by the occupied frequencies of the cello's harmonics.

"Ah, damn."

And there were the chords again. His instructor had never gotten that far with him—he understood the basic mechanics of chords and triads, but actually _performing_ them on the cello turned out to be a different matter all together. It required the precise knowledge of where the fingers went—oftentimes each finger pinching a different string, in seemingly impossible positions.

Freakin' Bach.

He leaned back in the metal folding chair, after he placed his bow on the stand in front of him. He cracked his neck, then decided to lay the instrument down on the floor of his room—his left wrist was aching again. It was time to stop.

Pablo Casals, he was not. Yo Yo Ma, he most _certainly_ was not.

Shoddy? Struggling? Reasonably distraught? He'd settle for those.

It wasn't that it was something that came natural to him. He had to struggle with each pitch every step of the way, often missing notes and rhythms entirely. And it was never because he didn't understand it, either. He was always able to understand how to do it—so well, in fact, that he sometimes wondered whether his instructor was really worth listening to at all. Understanding it was the easy part.

Shinji sighed. Some would call the memory a reminiscence of the good old days, but… the days weren't good back then. The days were never good. Not anymore, not ever. They were simply days waiting to end.

His gaze rested back upon the sheet music.

He didn't play. He didn't even try.

After a little while of nothing, he stood up and placed the cello back into its case in the corner, wiping the strings of the rosin before he settled it into place and hung the bow next to it. With everything solidly secured, he clasped the case shut, and examined the rest of his room. He pondered what the next course of action should be.

Rather, the next course of inaction.

His shoulders slumped in the defeat at the hands of some unknown force. As he collapsed into his bed, his arm fell across his face. What was the point of doing anything anymore? The only reason he was still kept around was because of Eva, and even if they told him to leave, he'd probably stay where he was. He literally had no other place to be. It sure didn't feel like home, but… it had grown on him.

After awhile, he sighed and turned out his light, sinking into a hazy, indistinguishable dream.

---

Oblique shadows of people he knew moved at odd angles across the wall. There were few that he could name.

—the retreating one, whose saunter echoed back and forth across the wall and floor tiles, retreating; shadow hands tucked tight into their shadow pockets, the shadows of shoulders hunched over. Broken. Dejected. Guilty.

Father.

—a breast, long slender legs; an unkempt mop of hair that tossed its way onto her head. The shadow didn't move. It stayed close to the wall, the half-circle of its nose pointed in his vague direction, the slender neck and still chest not even showing any outward signs of breathing. But it stared. He could tell how it stared. The eyes never blinked. And behind it, seemingly engulfing it, stood a larger more threatening shadow—a giant, a behemoth, with two unblinking eyes, covered in blood.

…Eva.

—a different breast, smaller, a shorter face with a tuft of hair that organized itself into kempt unruliness. Shorter. From the opposite direction. At first it didn't move, but then, slowly, it approached him, a shadowy hand reaching out steadily, tentatively, toward him. But it stopped midway. It stopped. It didn't move. He reached his hand out, equally slow, equally tentative, shaking slightly, feeling the Eva's gaze on his back, the jealously of the Eva's gaze on his back, until the palm of his hand met the wall.

He felt the shadow's hand beneath his own. He lightly grasped the demure fingertips, and gently hoisted—pulling, freeing the shadow. The shadow dissolved. Out of the wall, his hand grasping hers—

Ayanami.

—fall down. Backwards this time. He's naked instead of her. No more walls. No shadows. Just her apartment; he's on his naked back, she's got her uniform on, groping his chest, staring at him, and he's—she's—

She's leaning in. Her hand is touching his face. Leaning in. His eyes are closing, hers too, and she's still leaning in. Her face is _so_ close.

So… close…

---

"You decided to get up early."

Misato greeted him at the table. A can of lukewarm beer was in the hand that stretched lazily over the back of the chair, a half-empty mug of solid-looking coffee abandoned in front of her. Her hair was soaked. She probably just got out of the shower.

Shinji looked at her, puzzled. "What?"

"I was being facetious." She blinked and looked over at the clock. So did he.

11:38

"What time did you get to bed last night?" She took a sip of beer and held the can in front of her face as she spoke. The words rattled around inside the tin like pebbles in a drum.

"I'm not sure. There isn't a clock in my room yet." He rubbed his neck. His wrist hurt again. "It doesn't matter though, does it? I mean, the weekend and all…" He looked around, trying to find something for his eyes to rest on that wasn't Misato. "Where's Asuka? Isn't she up yet?"

She scrunched her brow in confusion. "Shinji, she lives across town. How would I know?"

He looked at her again.

"Oh," He said. "Oh, that's right." He closed his eyes and shook his head, pushing his left hand up through his forehead. "Yeah, right. Yeah." He scratched his scalp and headed for the refrigerator.

She set her can down. "Must've had some pretty crazy dreams about her, eh?"

"It's not like that!" His reply was quick. "It's just—she—I thought—" A sigh. "Sorry."

"Shinji?" Subdued alarm laced through her voice.

"No, nothing. My head's all whack from a rough night."

"Maybe a shower will help clear it."

"Maybe."

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**LIFETIMES AGO**

Water. Blue. Ennui.  
Required nourishment of body.  
Listless. Directionless.

Rain. Grey. Life.  
Release of vapor and chaos.  
Interrupts a silence. Staccato.

Cloud. Dark. Sleep.  
Brings rain, reprieve from humidity.  
Blots out the Sun.  
Brings shade.

Sun. Red. Death.  
Predictable, thoughtless;  
Shines light only to spawn shadows.  
Oppressive. Stagnation breeds under its watchful eye.

Shadows. Black. Hibernation.  
Intangible wisps of light's tricks.  
As close to nothingness as is approachable.

"I was created out of nothing. Return me to nothing. This is my only wish."

But the mirror only repeated her words back to her. Taunting. Mocking.

The glasses never held a response. Secretive. Barricaded.

Was she just a mirror, herself? When _he_ looked in the mirror, what did he see? When he looked in her mirror, did he see her reflection, or the reflection of his wife? When he looked at her, did he see a placeholder? A reflection of a dead person? Was she just a reflection of a dead person?

Did he see a doll, when he looked at her?

"I am the third." The reflection's lips moved, but she did not remember moving them.

She hardened her face. "But I am not a doll."

And the glasses broke.

And the door swung shut a final time.

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**minus ten years. (-10)**

Cyan.  
Nothingness.  
Peace.

No.

A red ocean.

—vanished in a flash of light.

"Can you hear us?"

---

"Excellent, it seems that she is in perfect, working order."

"…"

"Be sure that she stays on the medications that I have already gone over with you, and _this_ one should last you quite a while. Cellular degeneration is highly improbable—especially with the advancements and all—but it is something to be concerned about."

"…"

"Rei? Rei, can you hear me? Little one?"

"…Rei?"

"My, quite a soft voice, isn't it? Yes, dear. That is your name."

"…My… name."

"Yes. What we call you. You remember now?"

"…"

"Give her a minute, the artificial memory implant gums up the brain. It takes a little while for the consciousness to fully grasp all of the information it already has—needs to process seven years of experience that it doesn't quite know happened."

"…I… understand, now."

"Do you? Good, Rei. Now, this man is…"

And everything started happening again—at least for awhile.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**The second** stared off into an infinity of temporal existence. It ticked along, pace after pace, revolving infinitely around the infinite clock of unimaginable continuity; a round blob of time so immensely huge that it took the power of a circle to present it in the reality of the third dimension.

It had no intention of stopping any time soon.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**THE SECOND** watched calmly as the clock's hands moved themselves around the blank surface of the featureless device. This one had no long hand. Just minutes and hours. In its own words: "Who needs precision nowadays?"

The rain had been coming and going for weeks now. When it came tomorrow, the temperature would be approximately seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit at two o'clock in the afternoon. An inch of rain would have already fallen. One more would still be pending.

Today, the predicted high was fifty-six degrees, said to be reached sometime midmorning. The sky was clear, save for the giant yellow dot that stretched the shadows of buildings to engulf the streets and storefronts below.

There would be no clouds until sometime around six o'clock, P.M.; sunset. At that time, the sky would be soaked in a dripping crimson, the red pooling in the streets and dripping down the sides of buildings until the sun finally slumped below the horizon.

It was currently two o'clock P.M. The current outdoor temperature was approximately sixty-one degrees Fahrenheit.

Nevertheless, the air conditioner was on a schedule. The air moved through the otherwise vacant hallway, but was surprisingly noiseless—the repairmen fixed the bugs in the system last week. Only the dull hum of the overhead fluorescent bulb reminded the world of sound.

She waited for the elevator. The nearest stairwell was being repainted, and was therefore off limits.

The gears inside the clock shifted. A door opened. Some footsteps disrupted the silence. A boy cleared his throat. The elevator arrived. A door closed. The hum of the fluorescent bulb continued to remind the world of its sound.

"Hello, Ayanami."

"Good afternoon, Ikari."

"I take it you're on your way to the quartet practice this afternoon?"

"Yes."

They entered the elevator. The doors hissed shut. A button was pressed. A tone sounded. The box rattled down the shaft. The box stopped. A tone sounded. The doors hissed open. They exited.

"Could you please let Asuka and Kaoru know that I'll be a little late today? I've got a few errands I need to run for my mom before three. Fish market and such—you know."

"Alright."

"See you later."

"Ikari,"

"Yeah?"

"Do not forget about our scheduled sync appointment with Doctor Akagi tomorrow."

"What? Who's Doctor Akagi?"

The second made its way around the clock for awhile. Outside, a bird chirped. Inside, the dull hum of a fluorescent light bulb prevented the silence from getting too awkward.

"I… have not gotten enough sleep today. I apologize."

"Oh. Alright… Well, see you at rehearsal."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The Second Child is coming in from Germany, today."

---

"So I heard _you're_ the one who synched with Unit-01 with no prior training." She pointed an accusatory finger at the Third Child.

"Um, yes. Th-That's me." His reply was weak. So was his slouch.

She frowned, deeply. "Come with me, Third Child. There's something I need to show you."

---

How long ago was that?

She hopped down on the tracks of the station, skipping across the beams. She hummed quietly to herself. There was no one else in the whole station—and the stairs across the way went nowhere, just like both sets of tracks.

But she wasn't waiting for the way out.

A screech echoed down the hallway. She jerked her head to the left—lights.

She watched the train streak by, safe from her vantage point on the platform.

And she smirked to herself.

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**NOSTALGIA:**

Rain.

Violet.

"You smell funny."

"We've been in bed for a week. What'd you expect?"

"Not a week! We've eaten, haven't we?"

"We still haven't left the apartment."

"We went out on the patio, didn't we?"

"Well… except for those times."

"What you did out there gave me a funny mark over here."

"Mhmm, so I see."

"…"

"…"

"You know, you still smell funny."

"…"

"And you—hh—ah—I…a—ah"

"…you were saying?"

"Don't stop!"

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**plus nine years (+9)**

The ponytail stared out the window of his quaint apartment. The rain in the air was heavy with melancholy and recollection. Oh, how it brought back so many memories.

He smirked to himself.

There was only one word on his lips, one name. It was the only thing that mattered right now, lost in the reverie of reminiscence.

"Katsuragi."

He stared out of the window, idly gazing at the grey sky, remembering the good times gone by, watching the raindrops, the people, waiting.

And then, the phone rang.


	2. When He Thought He Stood Still

**Disclaimer: **Evangelion is owned by some smart folks.

**Author's Note:** Yes, it's been edited. I threw in a few scenes just to smooth things out for the long run. I realized that it wasn't finished by the time I wrote chapter 3, so I had to go back two chapters and rewrite a few sequences, edit in a few more. Oh well. Here's the finished chapter 2.

**CHAPTER ii: THE GIRL IN THE RAIN, WHEN HE THOUGHT HE STOOD STILL**

"I love microwaves." The man smirked as he pulled out a steaming bowl of that sodium-filled ramen soup out of the mentioned kitchen appliance. "Shinji my man, you have _no idea_ how much I love microwaves!"

Shinji stood in the doorway of the tiny kitchen space, observing the appointed caretaker for the evening; the pony tailed, the slick, the easy going Kaji Ryoji. Kaji was currently fishing around in the soup bowl with his chopsticks, pulling out long strands of the noodles and dumping them unceremoniously into his mouth.

"How long was Misato going to be out?" Shinji asked awkwardly, after a few meager, failed attempts at speech.

"Mmm?" Kaji made a noise that loosely translated into a vague question of some sort, looking up from his otherwise engrossing meal. He chewed the noodles currently in his mouth, before slurping up the ones that hadn't quite made it. "She's supposed to be back in a few days," he said finally, toying with the chopsticks in his hands as if they were drum sticks; flicking them back and forth across his knuckles. "As for where, well…" Shinji could tell he resisted a sardonic smirk. "I'm not supposed to know. You know how NERV works, kiddo."

Shinji nodded in understanding, before letting his gaze fall to the dirty linoleum floor of the kitchen. He remained motionless in the doorway, awkwardly waiting for something to happen.

Kaji broke the silence as he observed the boy. "Aren't you gonna eat something?" he asked between a bite of the ramen. "You haven't had dinner yet, have you?"

Shinji looked startled by the sudden speech. "I—" he cleared his throat. "I'm not really hungry." He said.

The man sitting at the table paused for a moment, then shrugged it off and continued eating. It wasn't his business to question the third child on his eating habits.

"Suit yourself."

The door to the apartment opened suddenly, a redheaded blur striding past the kitchen door, stopping momentarily to shoot an icy glare at Shinji. He reciprocated with a quick look away, and an uneasy gulp.

A door slammed shut in the apartment.

Kaji quirked his eyebrow once more, characteristic smirk lighting up his eyes. "Lovers' quarrel?"

"It's…. It isn't like that. She—I—we don't get along very well."

The smirk faded, but the eyebrow remained poised up near his hairline. "Well, you're going to have to try. Shinji, you two are pilots. If you two don't get along—"

"Yeah, I know." Shinji snapped his reply and cut Kaji off. He visibly winced when he realized it, but continued anyhow: "I'm sorry, but… I know. It's just—everybody keeps telling me the same thing. 'You need to do this thing or that thing'. It's all the same." His face became sullen and he shadowed his eyes with his bangs. "That's all I ever hear anymore. The only person that gives me praise anymore is Misato—a-and she only does it because my morale is her responsibility."

Kaji set his bowl down, and grappled the chopsticks in his hand. He sat back in the chair, observing the Third Child. He swallowed a lump in his throat, and his eyes grew hard. "That's what you're going to have to get used to, Shinji." His voice was soft, and lower than normal. "These people—anyone, for that matter—they're selfish. We all are. And don't try to say you don't understand because," Shinji finally returned the eye contact, "Because, I think you do. They're going to use you up, and when they're done, they're going to throw you out. That's how this place works. It's how the world works. I'd love to say that they care about you, need you—_personally_—but, the truth is… they really don't. The saddest part is that you're right—you're important because you're useful for NERV. You pilot Eva. At least you're important for _something_."

Shinji threw his gaze to the floor, and started to walk out. He suddenly found the bowing linoleum very interesting.

Kaji blinked and sighed. "I've given you praise before." His tone had softened.

With a deep sigh, he stopped at the doorway, head hung low. His face arched over his shoulder as he looked back at Kaji.

"…Have you?"

---

Sleep came in sparse increments that night. Before he knew it, and after an eternity of cat naps and waiting, the alarm echoed its tiny voice into the vastness of morning.

Shinji turned it off as he slid open his door, yawning ever so slightly as he walked in to prepare Misato's coffee. He stopped in mid-thought as he contemplated the last string, gazing idly at Misato's door. A soft groan emerged from the other side, followed by a low mumble.

"Shinj… nosh ugar 'day. Jus' black. Mm, lemme know wheni's ready." The groan came again.

Shinji looked around. There was no sign of Kaji. There was no sign of Kaji's trash or Kaji's dirty bowl from the previous night. There was no sign Kaji had even been there at all.

"Misato?" He lightly tapped on her door.

"Mmgg. Coffee first."

"Do you know what happened to Kaji?"

"Ffgh. No. Gimme som'dat coffee."

He frowned and sighed. "…Alright. Coffee it is."

As he stepped back into the kitchen, he realized that Asuka's room was empty.

And he frowned again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The melancholy sound of a viola echoed through the school auditorium. It was empty. Rows upon rows of wooden seats faced the stage, with its lone light shining down from the heavenly catwalks, the solitary figure of the schoolgirl poised on her metal folding throne, the instrument of divinity cradled confidently in her arms, singing, sighing, hymning a dance of sadness.

The music lay unceremoniously on the wooden floor. Aged pages filled with water damage and other stains were protected only by the torn and frayed cover.

BACH

As she drew the solo to a close, her eyes closed on instinct. The roar of silence that followed allowed her to pull her thoughts back together. But instead, she focused on the raindrops; how the water pelted against the roof of the auditorium, how it pooled in places and hallows right above her very head, how it sank through cracks and crevices in the faulty architecture, seeped through concrete, dripped down into the empty cavern, splashed onto the floorboards all around her. She shaped her phrases around the water, imitated its movement and flow with her music, became one with the essence of the water's ambivalence. The water had no positive or negative, no poles, no need; it simply flowed anywhere the terrain would shape it—and she treated the music as such.

The auditorium door swung shut with a loud, remarkable, ordinary, deliberate, punctual clatter.

---

"R—Ayanami!" She turned as she heard her name. Ikari slowed from his jog down the hallway to meet her. "Sorry I missed the quartet today—I had to make up that test I missed a few days ago when I was out. Did Asuka complain like she normally does? How was Kaoru? Does he have those sixty-fourth note runs down yet? That's a tough song."

Rei shook her head, her aimless gaze staring past him. "The others did not attend today. I practiced my solos."

Ikari looked taken aback. "Oh." He frowned. "I'm sorry. I thought—"

"It isn't something you need to apologize for." She looked toward the utilitarian doors.

"I know this must look pretty bad and all—I missed yesterday's too. The fish market took longer than I thought. And the one before that was canceled." She heard him sigh. "At least I've been able to do some practice on my own—not as much as I'd like to, since Mom's been needing my help around the house lately—not that I'm complaining, I love my mother, but it's just that… you know." He chuckled nervously as he tousled the hair on the back of his head.

They stood in silence for awhile. Rain beat against the doors. The storm outside wasn't even into full swing, yet.

"Do you know the time?"

"Eh—no, sorry. My watch battery's dead." As he shrugged, Rei approached the door, staring through the vertically cut window to the grey, wet world outside. Water pooled into the holes in the mud and gushed out of the downspouts, flooding the sidewalks.

He followed, peering over her shoulder. "Pretty damp outside, huh?"

She didn't offer a response.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kaji lit up a cigarette. "Want a smoke?" He was leaning against the wall of the Science building. He didn't even have classes there.

She looked over at him curiously. "Sure, I guess." She had just come out of said building.

"What was your name, again?"

"Misato." She took the offered cigarette with her index and middle fingers, holding it for him to light with the Zippo. She looked at it for a couple seconds, before inhaling—and coughing. "Sh-shit!"

Kaji chuckled. "New at this?"

She chuckled nervously. "I guess it shows, huh?"

"Yep."

He took a drag, and she took another—this time with less choking.

"So that's it? Just 'Misato'? No last name?"

"Do you need it?"

"I suppose not."

She leaned up against the wall next to him. He watched the clouds go by.

"It looks like a storm's coming." She said.

He grinned. "We'll be gone by the time it gets here."

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"You spend too long staring into those cups, Ryoji."

"Ah, Sub Commander. I didn't see you there."

Fuyutsuki inserted some coins into the vending machine. A peanut-butter and chocolate candy bar clanked into the dispensing tray, and was quickly dispatched.

"Finger O' Peanut?" Kaji read the wrapper between Fuyutsuki's fingers. "I didn't know you were a fan of junk food."

"I'd like to pretend it's nourishment, for the time being." He crunched into the bar and sat down on the bench beside Kaji. "Besides, I need a break."

"And what devious plots are you up to now, that you need a break from the chamber in the heavens?" Kaji smirked and gulped down some coffee—cold. Ugh.

The Sub Commander smirked. "Now, now. If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?"

"I suppose not." The ponytail stood. He threw his cup into the waste bucket and did a mock salute to the Sub Commander. "If you'll excuse me, O lord."

Fuyutsuki returned the mock salute with a bemused smirk. "Excused." He watched him exit the room, the door swishing shut with a silent gust of wind. The smirk faded, and his eyes wandered up to the blaring red EXIT sign.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

"We have located the Third Child." It was Section 2. Of course.

"Status of the Second?"

"Status remains unchanged."

"Have you determined the whereabouts of the First?"

"Negative, sir. It remains our top priority."

"Inform me should anything change. And keep the Third Child in the brig until I arrive."

"Understood."

He clapped the device shut with a single, brisk motion. Today was giving him a headache.

---

If Fuyutsuki had had the chance to voice his opinion at the time of construction, he would probably have argued against the building of such an obnoxiously deep room which occupied the highest level of the NERV pyramid. An office was one thing, but this was a little ridiculous.

"They have located the Third Child." His voice was the usual soft monotone. Ikari didn't need to know that he disagreed with his furnishing habits.

"Do they have him in custody?" He moved his bishop into position next to his golden general.

"Yes. I'll speak with him at noon." He dropped a pawn. "With the Major taking a week of her vacation time and Ryoji working on that special assignment, it only seems appropriate that I go, after all." He checked his watch. 11:58.

"You could send one of the techs." Ikari slid his remaining silver general into formation.

"I should send _you_, being his father. But seeing as how I'm not in a position of authority to do that…" The Sub Commander pushed his rook into the appropriate rectangle and stood to leave. "Your 'Yagura Castle' had some holes, especially after I captured your other silver general. Good try, though."

The door shut with an electronic hiss, leaving the Commander of NERV to frown over their lunch game of shogi.

---

"You've been missing for quite awhile, pilot." The shadow in the doorway stretched across the floor like an iron beam. It was silhouetted in the frame of the door, seeing as how there was no light inside.

Shinji didn't take his gaze from the ground. "…have I?"

"Do you know how long it took Section 2 to finally track you down?"

"…No, I don't. I'm sorry."

Someone sighed.

"Do you know where Rei is?"

"Is she missing, too? That's sad."

"So you don't know."

"I really didn't know I was missing. _I _always knew where I was… I think."

Silence.

"Am I in the brig, right now?"

"Yes. You're detained until I, the Major, or the Commander say otherwise. Seeing as how the Major is in Osaka for the time being, and the relationship with your father has been previously established as… _strained_, at best, that leaves myself."

"Yourself?"

"Convince me that you want to leave. And then convince me why I should let you."

"…Misato's in Osaka?"

"Eh—Yes. Didn't… Didn't she tell you where she was going?"

"I didn't know she was gone."

"Ik—" A cringe, then a sigh. "Shinji…"

It almost sounded like a chuckle. "I don't even know what's going on anymore. It's fitting that there isn't a light in here, since I'm always in the dark anyway." He bowed his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "How's Asuka doing?"

"The same as when you left."

"When did I leave?"

"After… After you killed the Seventeenth." If there had been light, one could have spotted Fuyutsuki's eyebrows scrunch into thought. "You don't remember, do you?"

"I don't remember when that was. I don't remember where it happened, either. It's happened before, feeling like this—just, never for so long. At least, I think it's been a long time. How long was I missing? A day? A week? I can't even tell."

"Three months."

"This feels like the first time I've been outside the apartment in three months."

The shadow in the doorway sighed and rubbed its forehead.

The door hissed shut, meeting the frame with a loud, metallic clang.

Darkness consumed the empty cell.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"_Lovers' quarrel?"_ The words echoed off of the graffiti-ridden wall.

"Who's there?!" Asuka turned quickly, azure darting around and between the great friendly letters tattooed across the uneven brick. Her fists clenched dangerously.

Nothing.

She turned trackside, folding her arms. A stray hair fell in front of her face, and she blew it off with a sneer. Then she bit her lip.

"'Lovers', hah." She glanced around as she refolded her arms and tried to chuckle. "Yeah," she whispered. "Right."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rei sat down at an empty desk in the classroom. Rainwater poured down the windows in torrents and sheets. There was no thunder, no lighting; just the oppressive grey cloud cover outside.

With the streets flooded, she couldn't leave the school. Ikari insisted that she stay put while he tried to find a phone.

The viola melody played once more, and echoed down the corridor.


	3. A Moment Silenced By Time

**Disclaimer; **I don't own Eva, and I used a semicolon this time.

**Author's Note: **Go back and read chapters 1 and 2, PLEASE. I've edited in a few scenes so that part of this chapter—and pretty much the rest of the plot—makes a little more sense. So, if you haven't already, go read the NEW chapters ONE and TWO!

* * *

**CHAPTER iii: AMIDST THE WATER, A MOVEMENT SILENCED BY TIME**

A cloud drifted idly overhead, taking all the time in the world to cross the finite dome expanse of the bright cerulean sky. The shadow passed over a uniquely unremarkable building, constructed a deceptively short time ago—the post-impact architecture a complete reproduction of the pre-impact buildings now underwater. Not surprising, one could assume, since the impact did little to faze the architectural style of utilitarian buildings like schools or government offices.

The roof, for instance, still had a rather hideous rusting railing that prevented occupants of the building from accidentally throwing themselves off, reminiscent of the pre-impact school buildings of fifteen, twenty, thirty years before.

When set against the locale of Tokyo-3, it looked as if Second Impact had never even happened.

The cloud drifted onward, its shadow slowly but steadily creeping up the sides of the grotesque, urban, rotting building, until the shadow crept its way up to the roof. It merged with another shadow.

"Ikari! Man, it's been a little while, hasn't it?" The wind tousled the Third Child's hair as he leaned his weight on the railing, his upper torso suspended out above the three-or-four story drop. He didn't bother to turn around to see who it was. He already knew.

"Mm." A noncommittal sigh. It was the same thing he did last time.

Kensuke was taken aback—again. "That's it? Just 'mm'? Even after we bonded out in the wilderness a couple weeks ago? Hah—I tell ya, Toji gave me an earful after he heard that I let you just get swiped by those NERV guys. Whatta trip."

Shinji watched the flower petals from the cherry tree below sway in the breeze. Funny, that wasn't there before, was it? Maybe he just never noticed.

"Kensuke?"

Kensuke joined him, leaning his elbows on the rusted railing. "What's up?"

"What's today's date?" A petal came loose from the flower, and found itself rushing skyward in a sudden updraft.

"It's…um," Kensuke's eyebrows knitted in thought. "You know, I'm not really sure." He laughed. "I just know that it's Tuesday. I can never remember the date—and anyway, who cares? Oh—" he just remembered something. "Toji's on his way up, by the way. He's finally come around since he saw you take down that angel. 'Wants to apologize, or something."

"No, it's fine. I…" he trailed off. The flower petal floated up to his face.

"Shinji?"

It was beautiful.

His hand waded through the air. Kensuke ceased to exist. The railing vanished. The blue in the sky engulfed his being as his fingers closed around the miniscule petal, and the world became a cushion of simplicity.

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The girl named Misato grinned at him from across the cafeteria table. What perfect teeth…

---

He opened his eyes and blinked, then groaned and cursed loudly. The soft hum of a computer fan droned in the background, accompanied by the unending sound of the ventilation, and the ever present tick of the clock on his desk. It said that he needed a smoke break. Too bad he was fresh out of cigarettes.

He pulled his head off of the keyboard, and gazed at the screen tiredly. Jumbles of text mashed together incoherently for pages, interjected by random symbols of punctuation. He cursed again. Why was he so goddamn tired all the time?

He sat back in the chair and stretched, groaning softly as he did so. What was he supposed to be doing, again?

Maybe some coffee would nudge his brain.

---

He stared into the cup. The aimless pool of sludge washed around at the bottom.

"You shouldn't spend so much time staring into cups, Ryoji." The Sub Commander stalked into the break room. "The coffee here is never very hot to begin with—shame if it gets any colder."

Kaji blinked over at the older man. He almost replied in jest, but an immense feeling of déjà vu hit him. It made him pause.

Fuyutsuki noticed. "What is it?"

"Nothing…." He blinked again. "Nothing at all."

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The rain hadn't let up yet. If anything, it had gotten harder. The auditorium was starting to flood—three inches of water in some places, five at the deepest. Drops still fell from the ceiling.

Rei observed the flooding from her vantage point on stage. Ikari slouched in one of the seats near the back. Since the floor sloped towards the stage, the back wasn't in danger of being flooded too soon.

"It seems that we're the only people here, Ayanami." His voice distant. It always was.

"…"

"We're—I couldn't get to a phone. 'Looks like we're just going to have to ride this storm out."

The clock on the wall measured the silence with its hands. Minutes passed. Neither of them spoke.

Rei peered into the flood of water that had accumulated at the base of the stage, staring into her soul.

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He ran his bow across the strings, his fingers lightly tapping the appropriate spots on the higher two strings to resonate the A harmonic. The D was a little flat. He adjusted the fine tuners appropriately.

Why were the stage lights always on? That one over to the left was in his face. Maybe he could adjust the music stand to block it—there.

He tuned the other strings accordingly. It was one of the few euphorias of life: the perfectly tuned instrument. He let a small smile escape, before pondering his music selection.

BACH

He flipped through the pages of the manuscript, his eyes dancing across each page as he dissected the melodies and rhythms of each piece, before settling on a uniquely obscure one.

UNACCOMPANIED CELLO SUITE No. 5  
IN C Minor

PRELUDE

He took it very slow.

The air was heavy in this place, wherever it was. Though he focused on the sheet in front of him, he could scarcely see anything other than the plain yellow boarding of the small plain stage. It cut off to his left, heralding a drop—probably four or five feet—to the pit and the audience's rows of seats. To his right, it disappeared behind a colossal beige curtain. The curtain ran the length of the stage, blocking the secret hovels of the backstage.

The song echoed off of the far reaches of the shadowed auditorium. The humidity would probably mess up his instrument—he'd no doubt have to retune after the prelude.

A drop of water pulled his thoughts out of the music. It fell, unannounced, from the ceiling, sailing downwards through the air, landing, uninvited, on the sheet of music in front of him. It made a loud, wet sound.

The echoes in the key of C Minor stopped immediately.

The notes on the page began to run and blur together, the ends of the pages bending inwards from the stress of the weighted music. They melted together, dripping, oozing; the pages pooled off the edges of the stands and dripped like blood onto the floor, running in between the cracks of the cheap, lacquered, yellow boards.

Shinji leapt back in alarm, the cello disturbingly ripped from his grip. It fell into the stage, engulfed entirely by the ocean of indistinguishable grey gunk.

The bow in his right hand shook violently, morphing, curving, elongating until he stood on the precipice of its hair, caught in the web-like stickiness of the individual strands, panicked, confused—

"Ikari."

She was perched on the stage, her legs dangling off the edge, her reflection in the pool of water at its base interrupted by staccatos of raindrops from the ceiling.

"Aya—Ayanami?"

He realized that his cello was nowhere to be found. Neither was the sheet music or stand. Or chair.

He clenched his left hand out of nervousness.

"What are you doing?" Her quiet tone was discordant against the intensity of her eyes.

He blinked. This was—this was the _real_ Ayanami, wasn't it? This girl couldn't be the same girl he kept catching off of the stretcher—unless, the first time really _did_ happen—but that just proved that—wait—unless—but that just—

He opened his mouth to speak as he caught a glimpse of the incomprehensible truth that suddenly dawned on him.

"I—"

But it was too late, because he woke up on the verge of epiphany.

---

"—…"

The silence was trapped in his room. A thin layer of dust had settled over everything; his cello, his desk, even portions of the floor. Cobwebs had formed in the dark, shadowed corners.

His alarm clock hadn't gone off yet. He still had a few more hours until that happened.

He wandered into the living room, where the television flickered lifeless images of all the angel battles, one after another in synchronized order. Giants of light with invisible force fields destroyed buildings with flashes of epiphany, biomechanical behemoths struggled against colossal beasts, talking heads barked out orders to other talking heads. The volume was nearly silent.

Misato was curled up on the couch, asleep. Shinji didn't want to wake her.

He slid out onto the patio. The air was stagnant and heavy, humid beyond words. The night was heavily overcast, and even the sound of the cicadas was muffled by the dense heat. Everything pointed to a storm.

He stared across the barren landscape. He saw the bustling city of Dis before him, perfectly set against the backdrop of an inevitable wave of the future. In his mind, he envisioned it; the battle, the endless troops, the weapons, the last final attempt to steal more power, Man's last jealousy. In his mind, he envisioned the apocalypse as planned by his father, as carried out by his own hands.

He blinked.

He could almost see the wings of Unit-01 sprouting on the horizon.

Shinji turned around, refusing to look at his reflection in the glass door. As he stepped inside, he ignored the television set that had finally been turned off, the sleeping form of Misato that had finally sauntered off to her own bed. He walked past the door to his room, stopping at the next one down. It was closed.

She wouldn't be there, but it was closed anyhow. Habit.

He opened it.

He stepped inside.

He curled up on the spare bed, and clutched the pillow close to his chest.

"Help me, Asuka." He clutched the pillow tighter.

Even though he couldn't hear himself above the relentless din of time, he subconsciously knew that he spoke the words.

"Just—anyone, please… help me."

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She wandered the halls of the school building. She had tried numerous doors, but found all of them to be locked. The exterior poured harder and harder with each passing stroke of the long hand, the meaningless hours ticking away past thought.

She stopped in front of an interior door. Its standard stainless steel knob stood out from the rest of its ordinary, brown-lacquered façade. The vertical grain of the wood was surprisingly dark.

She recognized the door—she passed by it every morning she had attended the school. She had never known what was behind it.

It was an odd sensation.

She reached toward the knob, grasping it in the palm of her hand, and gave it a gentle twist, but a soft click prevented any further movement.

Locked.

"Ayanami,"

Ikari was behind her. She didn't hear him approach. Nevertheless, she turned to greet him.

"Yes?"

His brows knitted into concern. "What were you doing?"

"I was curious." Her voice fell flat against the corridor's emptiness. "That's all."

Her uniform swayed as she left the spot, the soft ruffling of the fabric the only foreign sound in the whole building.

The rain continued to fall.

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The one named Sohryu stood alone in the subway station. Another train ran by, strands of her red hair filtered through her vision; ends whishing past her face and following the last car, sucked in by the vacuum created by the train's rush.

This train was on the express line; nonstop to nowhere. It never stopped here.

She sighed and crossed her arms across her chest, scuffling over to a bench and crossing her legs. It didn't stop this time, but she could wait a little longer.


	4. The Interlude of Gauf

**Disclaimer: **I don't own NGE.

**Author's Note: **The longest chapter yet, and probably the one that starts to make sense of the whole shebang.

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**CHAPTER iv: THE INTERLUDE OF GAUF; A FILM NOIR ROMANCE**

"And what can I do you for, eh?"

Ikari looked up from the spot of wood on the bar. "Oh, nothing." He said politely. "I don't drink—unless, if it wouldn't be too much trouble…" The bartender leaned in. "Do you have any tea?"

"Certainly. It'll be out soon—would you rather sit at a table to drink it?"

"No, this is fine—unless you'd rather I was—?"

The man put his hands up. "Hey, makes no difference to me man. You can stay."

"Thank you."

He sat motionless for awhile; customers idly making harmless conversation around him. Old men exchanged stories and knowing looks with other old men. Singles entered and couples staggered out. A man with a ponytail stepped inside, scruff on his chin scratching the palm of his hand as he surveyed the room. In the far corner, a tall, elderly man drank warm sake by himself, taking up the whole booth. Three off-duty NERV uniforms shared rounds of western beer in a booth off to the side, laughing to themselves, chuckling to others. A player piano in the corner babbled out a half-composed, disjoint melody, but was barely audible beneath the din of the atmosphere. The sound of a viola floated above the din, wafting bittersweet emotion through the air.

The bartender set the tea down on the counter. "There ya are, kid."

He fumbled with his wallet. "How much do I… um, owe?" His voice was quiet. The bar was very loud.

"Just leave a fiver on the counter when you leave. Tea's on the house."

"I wouldn't want—"

"Hey," The bartender waved his hand. "Don't worry 'bout it."

He turned his back and apparently stopped paying attention.

"T-thank you." Ikari slid the wallet back into a pocket of his pleated pants.

He sipped the tea for awhile. The ponytail sat down across the table from the lonely, sake drinking elder. A NERV uniform laughed so hard he fell out of the booth. His mate dragged him back onto the bench and collapsed against him in hysterics.

A brunette entered the bar.

"Ikari," Her voice was very soft.

Ikari rotated on his seat to face her. The smoke at the ceiling dimmed the lights that played shadows across her face. She wasn't smiling. She wasn't frowning, but she wasn't smiling.

Somebody in the NERV uniform booth burped loudly and the other two erupted in laughter.

"Hik—yes."

The ponytail in the corner of the room beckoned to a particularly buxom waitress. She excused herself as she slid between Ikari and the brunette, violet strands of hair filtering through the vision of both.

Ikari broke the silence. "Oh—sorry—have a seat."

"Thank you." She bowed out of politeness, and set her small purse on the table. The ponytail in the corner hit on the waitress as he ordered a drink. She leaned over a little more to offer him a better view. The old man just chuckled and sipped his sake.

The piano aimlessly tinkered on. It drowned out the solo viola player, whose eyes lit with frustration. The melancholy eventually became obtuse background noise.

Ikari didn't know what to say.

"Shin—"

"Hikari," he unintentionally cut her off. He inwardly winced. "Hikari, I—we can't go on like this."

One of the NERV uniforms picked up a glass full of beer and started to gulp it down. The rest of the table started to chant something, but the rest of the bar's noise drowned them out.

"I…" Hikari looked down at the purse in her lap. "I think that's best, too." She bit her lip.

Shinji felt sad. He didn't know the reason behind the emotion, since he wasn't even hurting anyone in doing this. The only person he was really injuring was himself. He couldn't grasp why this all felt so… depressing.

He sipped a little bit of his drink. He swallowed a tea leaf. All the while, his willed his eyes not to leave Hikari's. She was almost in tears, now.

"Do you understand why?" he whispered. He knew she heard him, though.

She nodded, bringing a hand up to her left eye to rub it, pretending that something had gotten into it.

"Do you?"

She broke down. Her body shook as she covered her face with her hands. She opened her mouth to speak, but could only force out faint gasps for air.

"No." she whispered, in between sobs. "N-no…" Tears streaked down her cheeks.

Shinji frowned. Why did he do this? Why did he do this to _himself_?

He waited for her to calm down before he spoke. She rested a hand on the table, and he sought it out with his own. She grappled onto it like a lifeline. Her lip was bleeding, now.

"Hikari, you're—" he cut himself off, trying to figure out a way to word this. "You aren't real, Hikari." It was a start.

Her eyes grew wide.

He sighed. He felt sick.

"W-what?"

"Just listen." He took a breath. The piano in the corner stopped playing. The tall, elderly man who drank sake suddenly sat behind it and made the keys work. He played a piece originally written for the harpsichord. The viola accompanied.

"You are a mental image," he started, "You're a construct of my own pathetic little mind. You—I _created _you out of… out of…" he looked down at the table. "You don't really exist, Hikari. You're the product of my imagination. I made you so I wouldn't have to feel so lonely." He bit his lip. He felt _very _sick.

She blinked in surprise. He slumped in defeat.

The elderly man's fingers tap danced across the keyboard. The girl's strings echoed with melancholy. Nobody heard them.

"Did… did it work?"

"What?"

"Did I make you feel… less lonely?" Her speech was slow and sad, accompanied by the viola in the background.

He cringed. "…No. It felt great, since—since it _felt_ like it was real. But deep down, I knew that it was all fake. I knew that you weren't real. I'm… I'm sorry, Hikari. I really am." She sniffled, but managed to hold her composure.

He stood up. It was time to destroy this place.

"Shinji, you won't forget about me, will you?"

He smiled. "Of course not," He said.

And the walls collapsed in on themselves, and everything dissolved into nothingness.

---

The darkened stage was illuminated only by the blaring red EXIT sign who echoed its tiny laughter into the emptiness of the solitary room. Shinji found himself standing alone in the expanse of center stage, where all the lights had long since gone out. The curtain was drawn wide open like the jaw of a dead beast, exposing the innards of the dramatic device. All of the beady little dead eyes stared out of the cameras like little doll playthings.

Shinji took a breath and approached the door, opening it, falling forward into the blank space beyond, only to find himself—

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**CHAPTER iv: THE INTERLUDE OF GAUF; A FILM NOIR SPY STORY**

The pistol always felt a little too heavy in the palm of his hand. It was better suited to a soldier, or a cop. He was neither. He was a victim of circumstance. He was on a crusade for the truth. Crusaders shouldn't need pistols.

"Excuse me,"

He bumped into one of the devils standing at the door. The man leered at him with silenced pupils, one hand always at attention where it rested on his nine millimeter arm rest, the hammer cocked halfway-to-the-ready of lead-painted hatred. He glared at the spy.

"I need to get in there." Kaji's voice was defiant and clean. He stared back. He maintained eye contact.

"I'm afraid that you can't." The hammer clicked in the holster. The man could have that rod out and be shooting a dozen-and-a-half rounds through the spy at any second. The hair-trigger on this baby was enough to silence any son-of-a-bitch with a cocky attit—

He slumped against the wall, unconscious from Kaji's fist. Amateur.

He started to open the door. Why weren't there more guards here?

Kaji shook his head. It didn't matter. He just needed to get this guy out of here. He was a key to the truth, and NERV was closer to it than SEELE.

He stepped inside.

---

The room was insanely loud. A boy sat awkwardly at the bar, isolated by a barrier of a few vacant stools that had been abandoned by weary old men with countless bad stories to tell. The bartender was preparing something with hot water involved. The man he was looking for was in the obscure corner booth, solitarily enjoying some warm sake.

He rubbed the scruff on his chin. This wasn't quite what he expected.

He walked over to the booth anyhow.

"Sub Commander." His greeting was curt, but polite.

The elderly gentleman seemed to have been startled out of a reverie, and looked up at the spy, squinting to focus his eyes. "Mister Ryoji. Odd to see you here. Have a seat." He motioned to the empty bench. Kaji took it, grinning.

"So what brings you here, Mister Ryoji?" Fuyutsuki sipped the sake.

"Just Kaji today, Professor." He gave Fuyutsuki a bemused look. "I had originally come to get you, if you'd believe it. How'd you end up here?"

The Sub Commander gave a small snort. "First I'm tied up in a chair, with a horrible headache, being interrogated by the monoliths of humanity, and they bore me to the point of lapsing into a rather pleasant walk down memory lane. Next thing I know, you startle me out of it, and I'm sitting here, in this bar, with a whole bottle full of warm sake as my companion—just the way I like it." He sipped said companion. "And—it's Kuzou, for the record."

"Hmm." Kaji nodded. His tone turned dark, and he leaned forward conspiratorially, motioning Kuzou to do the same. He raised an eyebrow, and set the sake aside. "What happened?"

Kuzou scrunched his brows in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Don't be coy, Professor. I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows about what's really going on—listen:" he licked his lips carefully, glancing around. "I've been fatally shot a countless number of times. I've died a countless number of times. I'm sure I've lived this life—this _exact_ life—an infinite number of times. I know all of my lines by heart; all the scene changes, all the settings, the entire script, by heart." He took a breath. Kuzou eyed him with an odd look in his eyes. Kaji knew that look. It was the look that said 'We aren't allowed to talk about that' look. He cringed as Kaji hissed "_Why is this different?_"

Fuyutsuki sat back and breathed a heavy, weighted sigh. "I don't know." He said, after a long while. "I'm as in the dark about this as you are."

"So you have no idea?"

"How could I have _any_ idea?" He restrained from pounding the table. His raised voice was hardly noticed in the overly noisy bar, as it was. The viola still hovered above the din, somehow.

"The mere fact that you can remember the 'script', as you so adequately put it, is because we aren't in a normal place. We aren't where we _should_ be—reality, I'd like to say, but this place seems about as real as anyplace else in our entire lives. I don't even know _where_ this is, never mind when—or even how."

"I don't think I'm following you, Professor." Kaji focused on the bottle of sake.

The Sub Commander sat for a moment in silence. "Look," he started. He didn't know how to begin. "I… I can't explain how it worked. Instrumentality, I mean. I honestly don't _know_ how it worked. But I can say for a _fact_ that it never had effects that went _this_ high." Fuyutsuki ran a hand through his hair. It foofed back into place. "To be honest, Mister Ryoji, this goes above and beyond anything we ever attempted with Instrumentality. We—NERV, SEELE, hell, even Gendo Ikari—we never tampered with this."

"What you're saying is that something's been seriously fucked up and you have no idea as to how it happened." Kaji looked over at the bar. The viola played a shrill note. "Figures."

They were silent for a disturbed while.

Kaji rolled his head back against the worn leather of the padded bench, staring off into the smoky abyss. He forced a polite smile as Fuyutsuki raised his sakazuki, as if in mock toast. "To Autumn," he declared, out of the blue.

The spy smirked, amused. "I'd drink to that, but I need something to drink with." The Sub Commander chuckled and sipped anyhow, but nodded. "Yes, of course." Kaji motioned to a waiter. She brushed between a young couple who were staring at each other awkwardly. Kaji paid it no mind.

"Well, well. Imagine seeing you here!" He grinned as she quirked an eyebrow and pushed her nose up at him.

"Well, well indeed. Let's hear the drink order, then."

"I'd rather see your order, ma'am." He couldn't conceal the smirk.

She leaned over the table dangerously, the cut of her shirt dangling lower, her face close to his, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why, think you can handle it?"

Kaji was speechless for half a beat. "Uh—wow. That's a… large order to fill." He somehow managed to get his eyes back to hers.

She stood straight, a hand on her hip. "So it's whiskey, I take it? You look like a man, after all."

"Sure, sure." He cocked the smirk again. "You guessed it."

As she turned back to the bar, she peered over her shoulder. "You remember my name, right?"

"Misato." He said. "Just 'Misato'."

She winked, and returned to the bar.

Fuyutsuki chortled. "Looks like the relationship between you and the Major has certainly improved."

Kaji's ease faltered.

"The… Major…" He suddenly remembered where he used to be. "Major Misato Katsuragi…" He grew sullen. "…Damn."

Someone sat the bottle of whiskey on the table, and ran off before he could catch a glimpse of them. It didn't matter. Everything was the same, here.

Fuyutsuki grew somber as he stared into his sake. "I've been told that playing an instrument can ease stress and even make you happy." His gaze never left the shallow, bottomless sake dish.

"Can you play an instrument?" Kaji poured himself a shot and gulped it down. He winced, coughed, and threw his head down on the table.

Fuyutsuki ignored his reaction to the alcohol. "I used to, years ago. I stopped when the Impact hit—no time, really. Got busy." He sighed and sipped some sake. "I wonder if I've still got it."

He rose, quite suddenly, from the booth, and approached the mechanical device that impersonated a piano. He disconnected the player and sat down in front of the thing, staring at the keys for a little while. The woman with the viola played on regardless, either ignorant of ambivalent of the mechanical player's death.

Fuyutsuki focused on the viola's melody, and—with effort—started to design a light harmony to counter it. The chords were rusty, and the key wasn't quite right, but it fit. Everything started to come back to him as he played; all the movements, the drills, the etudes—everything started to make a little more sense. For a few brief moments, he started to understand what the reality of it all meant.

Kaji watched in silence for awhile, before abandoning the whiskey after only a single shot. He walked calmly to the back of the bar, where a door morphed itself out of the solid brick. The doorknob was a bullet, and it shattered the room to a million trillion pieces of individual thought patterns as he twisted it, moving into the blackness beyond.

---

The blackness beyond took the form of an extremely poorly lit spiral staircase, made of concrete. It was tight and narrow, reminiscent of some secret medieval passageway. Kaji found it difficult to maneuver any other way but down, since the ceiling was low enough to warrant slumped shoulders, and the walls were so close together that it made turning around difficult.

The door behind him slammed shut, sending an echo down into the cramped space. There was almost absolute silence, a sensation he had never experienced before. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of the viola in the bar, far behind him, but as he proceeded down the cramped stairway, he realized that the music did not emanate from the bar at all, but from whatever lay at the terminus of the passage.

He immersed himself in thought as he descended the staircase. Step after step seemed to roll by at a monotonous pace, hardly noticed, as he wandered in the depths of his mind.

What had happened that had made him remember all of the timelines he'd lived? Where was he? Fuyutsuki had said that Instrumentality couldn't initiate something this drastic, but… what if the Third Impact had unseen effects? It could certainly have done some rather impressive damage to the reality or realities in which it had occurred, but couldn't it also have triggered something temporally as well? A catastrophe on the scale is bound to have a pretty big mark on any timeline it occurs in, and since mankind had yet to witness something like that on a scale so big, it would come as no surprise if this whole mess of scripts and stage plays resulted from the original Third Impact—however long ago of far ahead it (will?) end(ed) up happening.

The staircase terminated at an uninteresting door, similar in style and appearance to the one which had begun the staircase. He grasped the handle, and stepped through.

---

The first thing that greeted him was the blinding lights from above. The second thing that greeted him was the sound of his name.

"Mister Ryoji." Rei Ayanami dangled her feet off the edge of the stage. Water leaked from the ceiling, pooling at the stage's edge.

A boy who tried to pass himself off as Shinji Ikari stood at the back of the stage, watching him with curiously smug red eyes. His hair was starting to grey. The illusion was wearing off.

Kaji glanced over his shoulder when he heard the sound of the door closing, only to realize that there had never been a door there. The wall was simply an overly large curtain.

He stepped out onto center stage. There was no applause, simply because there was no one to give it.

"You cannot stay here for long, Mister Ryoji." Her voice was the normal tone, yet there was something underneath of it that he couldn't identify. Was it a sense of existing…? He couldn't quite place it. Was she… was she, perhaps, the _real_ Ayanami, the archetype from which the illusions were based off of?

Her voice disrupted his thoughts. "Go. Now. The door to the side will take you to where you need to be." The Shinji Ikari impersonator had neared the stage. His jaws widened to show rows of razor sharp teeth. His eyes had hardened into determined globes of smugness. The _real_ Ayanami turned to confront him. Her hands clenched into fists.

And he ran.

---

Another darkened staircase—wider, taller, and a better lit, perhaps, than the previous one, but still another staircase. He shook his head as he descended. What was going on? Did anyone even care anymore?

A loud screech and a strong gust of wind flooded up the wide stairway. The dimly glowing fluorescent bulbs lining the walls flickered a little.

It was a subway station.

Graffiti littered the walls. Newspapers were stuck to the floor like carpets and mats. The smoke residue from trillions of cigarettes had tattooed the ceiling and the tops of walls a disgusting sludge color. The butts of said cigarettes had either long rotted away, or rolled around beneath the tracks of the subway cars.

Kaji stepped off the last step. The gate crashed into place behind him, locking itself tight. There'd be no way to undo that without causing quite a ruckus.

A familiar mop of red hair sat on the only bench on this side of the tracks. Her back was to him. Did she know he was there?

"Why hello, Mister Kaji!" She grinned, but he couldn't see it from his perspective. It wasn't the happy grin she always wore around him, though. It was the knowing grin. Almost like a shark's grin. "I was wondering when you'd turn up. You're almost going to miss the show."

She stood and faced him, a confidant hand on her hip. "What, isn't the doll with you? Oh, no—that's right." She diverted her gaze to some of the graffiti along the walls, seeming as if to read it. "She's preoccupied right now." The last line she whispered to herself.

"A-Asuka?" Kaji had to squint to remember. Was that her name? Yes, it had to be.

She breathed a sigh of amusement. "I'm glad you still remember me, even after I walked away from the timelines. You have a good memory."

"Timelines—walk away from—memory—what the hell is this about?" He collapsed against the tile wall of the subway in tired defeat.

"Oh no, no, no!" Asuka threw her hands up, her voice remaining in mock overseer mode. "That isn't the story for me to tell! You're going to have to wait until the train arrives for that one!"


	5. Disillusionment

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Neon Genesis: Evangelion

**Author's Note: **I like to pride myself on my ability to start a sentence in one chapter, and finish the same sentence halfway through the proceeding chapter. There simply isn't anything quite like the taste of nonlinearity.

I like this chapter, actually. Everything starts to wind down, and I think that—so far, at least—I've been successful in starting to tie the knots of all the little plot threads I've got running. The end is near!

* * *

**CHAPTER v: DISILLUSIONMENT; or, A SHIP MODEL INSIDE THE CABIN OF A MODEL SHIP**

The room was nearly quiet. A thin layer of dust had settled on the cello in the corner. The desk was cluttered by needless jibber jabber that meant absolutely nothing. The air was heavy.

Asuka's steady breathing was a rhythm to his heartbeat. No—a hammer to the inside of his skull.

Naked, he leaned against the bed, knees pointed straight to the ceiling, fingers laced through his short hair. His knuckles turned white from grip. Tufts of directionless hair poked out of the spaces between his fingers like poorly mowed grass. He panted. He tried to get himself in order—his heart rate, pulse, his _conscience_— but it only made things worse.

He repeated two words to himself, believing every syllable inside the dead room. It was all he had, inside the room. The syllables. Himself. His words, his room, his life—or what was left. Misato had grown dull and weary. Kaji had died countless times and had isolated himself from everything. His father never really talked to him to begin with. Rei had disappeared. And Asuka—

Asuka…

He shivered.

Even his cello had stopped cooperating.

So he sat. Worn down, beaten, and yet stoic like the stone buffeted by the storm of unending existence. He couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm scum." The whisper fell flat again, when faced with the immutability of the whole situation. "I'm scum." He almost wept, but he didn't seem to have it in himself anymore.

Asuka's breathing stopped. A snort. He turned his head to face the naked figure, whose back was to him again. She went back to breathing in rhythm.

"I'm—I'm scum." He grabbed the pair of pants by the door—had to be his, she only wore dresses—and put them on as he tore out of his room. He didn't bother closing the door.

Who would care?

-------------------------------------------

Rei shivered as Ikari approached her. His steady, confidant gait down the center of the auditorium was as uncharacteristic as it was unsettling. There was something in the eyes he had—determination? No, that wasn't it. Certainly not fear. Confidence?

No. Arrogance. Gall. Blatantly smug confrontation.

She ran.

----------------------------------------------

"You fear the closeness of others, so you choose to bear the fundamental loneliness of the Lilim existence. Your endurance is quite remarkable, Shinji Ikari."

"Kaworu…"

"And yet, when the choice between rebirth and extermination was presented, your indecision was rooted in your inability to differentiate between those who had caused you pain and those who loved you."

"B-but I didn't—it wasn't my intention for _this_ to happen."

"Regardless of your intentions, indecision has always been a valid option for you Lilim—an option you chose when the time had come."

"…Still… It's just that I don't know what to do—the first time I've ever been given a choice and—and—I've never had that before! How did you expect me to react?! And—how—how could I even _make_ a choice like that? It was better that I decided nothing at all…"

"You have nothing to fear, Shinji. I will continue to be your guide through the hardships that await."

"What hardships?"

"All decisions have consequences. You must bear these, as must all of the Lilim. Your chosen path will not be without pain."

"Without pain? Does that… that means that…"

"Yes, Shinji. It means that you still have your heart."

---

Shinji watched the sunrise from the roof of the apartment complex. Red poured through the streets of Tokyo-3, dying the windows of shops, drenching the cars—the unstoppable wave of the inevitable foreshadowed in a dawn.

There was a clatter behind him. He didn't bother to turn around.

"Shinji," The voice was very soft, like a tentative stroke with a horsehair paintbrush.

He turned. His eyes met irises drenched in the same bleak engulfment of red.

"…"

He couldn't bother with formalities anymore. Was this before or after the Sixteenth?

She approached, and stood next to him at the building's edge. The blue in her hair had a silver sheen to it. Maybe that was just the dawn's light.

"She loves you, doesn't she?" Her voice hadn't changed.

A light breeze blew across the city, sending waves rippling across the crimson rivers of light that had consumed the streets. Her skirt wavered in the breeze. Her shadow gave that much away.

He couldn't reply. She threaded her fingers between his.

"It's… been a long time, Rei." His face softened, looking at her for the first time. "Are you… are you real?"

She gazed at him. Her embrace felt like water from a warm spring; the way she melted into him, relaxed, totally at ease, natural. And her voice was like another brushstroke:

"Does it _feel_ real, Shinji Ikari?"

Shinji pulled away, and for a brief millisecond, saw everything.

"R—"

Kaworu's face stared back, the red dawn hitting his face at its obscure, indefinable angle, engulfing the other side in silhouette. He smiled warmly.

"I told you I'd be here as your guide." His mouth moved slowly and deliberately, and the words came out like silk too soft to be real.

Shinji stepped backwards, screaming as his foot met only air and he tumbled into the vast red ocean of sunrise.

---

The sound of silence greeted his return to consciousness. The air was empty.

He rolled over. The bleak apartment smelled of dust and mildew. A glass full of evaporation stood on top of the refrigerator in the corner, accompanied by various narcotics and other medicines that defied logic. Bloodied bandages lay in a cardboard bin beside it.

He removed the pale arm that had been carefully draped across his chest and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. He gazed at the other occupant, admiring her peacefully sleeping form, hypnotized by her shallow breathing.

There were no sounds of construction outside the window. There was only the silence of a screaming dawn.

He dressed quietly, but he knew she'd wake up anyhow.

And the door to the apartment clattered shut like the lid of a rattled coffin.

---

Rei joined him on the roof. The devastation from the Sixteenth Angel and Unit 00's destruction loomed before them. The water in the crater reflected an overcast sky, brightly alive with the long arms of the sun's flames on the horizon.

They stood like that for awhile.

"The Seventeenth arrives tomorrow." Her tiny voice lit the air like a small candle in a cathedral.

He nodded vacantly. "But I'm not supposed to know that."

She grasped his hand subconsciously, threading her fingers through his. "I'll protect you, Ikari."

"I… Yes. Thank you, Ayanami."

"Do you… wish to continue this?" She gazed at him from the corner of her eye.

He sighed. "I don't know. I think that it's probably best that we do."

Her brow crumbled into ache, and she glanced away. "Alright."

He sensed the despair in her voice. "What?"

"Why do you fear change so much?"

"I don't know." He ended the conversation, and they gazed into the orb of sunlight on the horizon.

But the sun wasn't rising. It was setting.

And the final rays of the sun reminded Shinji that there was someplace he needed to be.

--------------------------------------------

The auditorium was filled with the echo of the raindrops on the exterior of the building. The storm had finally brought its full wrath upon the place.

Rei's foot found itself caught in a gap in the rug. The shoe refused to move as she pulled her body weight forward, resulting in an unexpected plunge and a twisted—probably strained, if not worse—ankle.

The boy who was slowly creeping up to her had finally shed his skin. The illusion peeled off of him in long, leathery straps, pooling at the floor and flowing into the puddle at the bottom of the stage like ink. Nagisa stared down at her now, a dangerous smile alight on his features.

"Where is Shinji?" His voice was soft, yet it somehow drowned out even the clatter of raindrops.

She stared up at him insolently. It'd be difficult to fight back with this bad foot.

He reached for her, but her good leg lashed out, kicking sharply. Three of his fingers snapped backwards and broke. She was immediately on the foot again, limping as quickly as she could while he yelped in surprise. She didn't turn to watch him reset the knuckles.

He sprinted up to her and threw her to the ground again. Her face smashed into the concrete, protected only marginally by the rotting layer of carpeting on top. She groaned.

"I'll ask again: where is he?" She struggled against his hold. He was strong. But his strongest grip was only on one arm.

"He is safe." She broke the other arm free, and swung it sharply into the side of his head.

He grunted, but maintained the grip. She swung again, but found her forearm caught in his teeth.

His sharp teeth.

Blood trickled down her arm. It contrasted sharply to the pale skin. Watching it only made it hurt more.

She fought the instinct to rip it out of his jaws. That would make the wound worse. She opted for the other solution; a knee to the groin. Too bad it was with her injured leg.

He released her arms and coughed a loud cry, doubling over next to her. She slid away and tried once more to hobble to the door. She kept her bloodied arm close to her body.

Rei slammed her shoulder into the heavy door, not having the limbs to spare a push. Her blood trickled down her dress and fell to the floor like the leak of a faucet. She ignored it. It wasn't deep enough to cause major blood loss.

She was halfway to her destination when the door behind her burst off of its hinges. Kaworu stood calmly, stoically, almost impassively. The smile was gone. His eyes…

She was afraid.

She had to get to the door. It was probably her only option at this point.

He was fast. She couldn't stop him as he grabbed the back of her hair and yanked her into a wall. Blood spattered on the brick. She heard her nose break, but she tried to block the pain. Her endurance was staring to wear.

He pinned her to the wall, bloodied arm twisted behind her back, the other shoulder dislocated from his elbow grinding into the joint. He held her head against the wall with the same arm's fist, gripping a handful of powder blue strands. He pushed a knee into the small of her back.

"Tell me where Shinji is." The hiss in her ear only further drove home the fact that he was incomplete control. "Tell me or I'll kill you."

"If I die, you'll never find him." The soft words managed to choke out, strained. "You should know that."

He exhaled, bowing his head in defeat. He relaxed, then stepped back into the hallway and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.

Rei collapsed her back against the wall, sliding down to a heap on the floor. She panted heavily, and strained to pop her shoulder back into place. Sweat and blood plastered the ripped school uniform to her body.

When Kaworu turned around, his smile had returned. "A deal, then?"

--------------------------------------------------------

—standing in the railcar. The red orb of sunlight was still, unmoving, even as the buildings passed by the windows. The ground underneath the soles of his feet was no longer the roof of the apartment building. It moved and gyrated, shook, rattled. The noise of general movement filled the small railcar. And all the while, the sun stayed still.

It was raining, somewhere.

The train suddenly dived into a sharp descent, plunging into a tunnel. The sun was instantly replaced by the fluorescent lights.

Feeling slightly disoriented, Shinji grasped one of the metal poles and sat down in a seat. The padding was shot, and the metal framing of the seat itself made his bottom ache uncomfortably. It didn't matter, though. He was sure that most of the rest of the train car was the same way.

Lights flashed by. They illuminated nothing, save for the long shadows that stretched across the unwelcoming floor of the railcar. Apparently the interior lights were shot—probably a faulty fuse someplace.

He sighed and breathed into his hand as it ran across his face and through his hair. Everything was so messed up.

"Why are you here?"

The tiny voice came from beside him. He didn't turn to look. He already knew who it was.

"Because—" he stopped. He didn't know why he was here. At this point, he hadn't really paused to fully comprehend where _here_ actually was. "Because it's always like this. I always end up here. I never _know_ why."

The figure hadn't moved. The school girl's shadow flickered in and out as the light flashes illuminated the car. Her dress swayed in syncopated strobe. As the lights flickered by, the shadow morphed from a dress into the form-fitting plug suit. Shinji paid it no heed.

"Do you fear this place?" Her words didn't echo through the stark interior.

"I don't understand it." His did.

"Do you fear what you do not understand?"

"Of course I do! Everyone does, don't they? I-I mean, it's only logical, right?" His outburst was punctuated by a crash and a jolt of the car; the transit probably hit a gap in one of the tracks. It continued on monotonously.

"But you do not make an effort to understand it, do you?"

"How can I? With things happening the way they are—how can I understand it anyway? How can I even begin to _try_? These events—it's all beyond my control! Everything I've done so far hasn't made a difference."

"But you've never been trying to make a difference, have you?" Her shadow moved closer, and stood next to his lump of a silhouette projected on the floor.

He trembled for a moment. Then he sobbed when his voice caught in his throat. He didn't want to admit the fact that he'd done nothing. "I don't want to…" his mumble fell flat against the cacophony inside the railcar. "Different means change. I don't want that. Change… change hurts people. I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want to be left alone."

"You've always _been_ alone, Shinji." A shadow of a man stretched across the door of the car, his hands in the pockets of his pants. It was as if his back was to Shinji, stoic, waiting for the station to arrive.

"But—well—no I haven't! I—I mean—"

The man's shadow turned to a perfect profile of a mature face. "When I left you alone, you hated me for it. And yet, when I needed your help, all you wanted was to be left alone. You must decide what you want."

"But that doesn't count! You never gave me a choice in the matter!" His shout did little to faze the shadowed occupants. "And besides, you just used me in your twisted schemes and—and you didn't really do it because you wanted me around anyhow! What kind of father _does_ that?!"

"But I still remembered you."

"That doesn't matter!"

"Doesn't it?" The shadow turned, and faced the door once more. It was gone in a fluorescent flicker.

"Wait! Father—!"

The shadow on the floor extended a hand. Shinji looked down and watched it.

"What is it that you want?" Her voice came again from the flickering darkness. Her offered hand was still outstretched.

When he reached his own hand out, she fell through the floor and collapsed on top of him. She was no longer just the two dimensions.

"Is this what you wanted?" Her crimson eyes stared into his. They were sprawled on the floor of the car, its rocking somehow making it all the more intimate.

"What… what happens now?"

"You're going to have to make a decision."

He looked away. "But Kaworu said I didn't have to make any decisions anymore. And—and besides, I'll only make things worse if I do."

"You're going to have to take that chance, Shinji." She smiled, and in the flicker of a white light from outside the window, she was gone.

------------------------------------------------------

Another train flew by. Kaji could only watch it from where he leaned against the wall.

"If the First doesn't get here soon, she's going to miss the show." Asuka walked across the very top of the bench, her hands outstretched for balance on the slim surface. She was talking for no one but herself.

Kaji could only tiredly gaze in her direction. He needed a cigarette.

"You need a smoke, don't you?" Asuka pivoted on the back of the bench, her hair swaying as she moved around. "I can tell. Even when you don't say anything, I can tell."

He frowned at that.

"Kaji," she hopped down from the bench and made her way towards him. "What's it like dying?"

A double take. "What?"

She looked away, and sighed to herself. "Nothing," she said. "Just… forget it."


	6. Those Who Reach Out To Grasp

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Neon Genesis: Evangelion

**Author's Note: **A finale. It didn't quite turn out the way I planned.

I almost debated turning it into a two part chapter, since it's so long (twice the length of my average two-thousand-some chapters), but I figured that would muck up the coherency and linearity. So, I settled on keeping it as is, posting it as one whole big KABANG to an already messed up story.

* * *

**CHAPTER vi: THOSE WHO REACH OUT TO GRASP; or, A FILM NOIR FIST FIGHT**

Rei could only gaze at Kaworu with lidded eyes.

"What do you mean?" Her strain was portrayed in the barely noticeable quiver of her voice.

"A deal." He repeated himself patiently. "You know where Shinji Ikari is." He stepped closer to her disheveled form. "You also know when you're going to see him again—and don't lie; I can see it in your eyes." He reached to touch her chin, but she batted his hand away with a vaguely insolent glint in her eye.

She offered no response to his frown of mild disapproval.

"Do you know what lies behind that door?" Kaworu motioned to the door in the hallway as he continued.

Her gaze was as level as she could muster, but again refused response.

"Well, I do. And I also know that you know how to get to Shinji Ikari _from_ what lies behind that door." He walked over to a space of wall next to her, leaning against it. He slid down to her level and squatted on the heels of his feet, his arms poking straight out in the air with their elbows resting on his kneecaps. "Do you understand?"

"How do you know this?"

"How I know is irrelevant, wouldn't you say?" He stood up and offered her a hand. "I never really _wanted_ to hurt you, but you never seem to give me much choice."

She stood without taking the offered assistance.

"I do not need your assistance, Nagisa." She brushed past him and stood in front of the door.

He arched his eyebrows with a grin. "Don't you? How else are you going to get through that door? I'm the only one that knows how to open it."

She frowned.

"And besides," he continued, "Both of us wish to see Shinji again, so what does it matter?"

He stopped short of the statement, but they both knew how it ended.

She was motionless in front of the door for some time. All obstacles had solutions. How was this one solved?

---------------------------

"Asuka, what do you mean? What's _dying_ like?" Kaji's gaze could almost be considered a piercing, visual assault.

Asuka's back was to him once again. "Nothing! It's nothing. Forget I asked."

Her mumbled words did little to quell his quiet alarm. He sighed, and broke the stare at the back of her head. He settled it on the rail tracks as his head hit the tiled wall with a soft clunk.

A long pause followed.

"It's… scary, at first."

She turned. "What?"

He didn't look at her. He kept staring at the tracks. "Death. At first it's really, really scary." He scratched his head. "I remember the first time. The very first time. Before this whole mess happened, back when—back when you were still around." The last part almost made Asuka smile. Almost.

"It was painful—that part never changed. You can't get used to that pain. Not the bullet, mind you—that's just normal physical stuff. Your mind can block that out, since it never really remembers it anyhow. The pain I'm talking about is the pain of death; and I really can't describe it exactly." He ran a hand over his hair, stretching his bangs backwards along his scalp only to have them fall back into place as he released them. "But… it's something that you can never get used to. Ever. It hurts every time.

"Eventually, everything just sort of fades out, like the end of a bad movie. The smells and tastes go first, and after that is your hearing. The first time it happened, it was… frightening, I guess, but it was acceptable. It was sort of like… have you ever had a dream, where the most absurd things happen, but you accept them as ordinary? It was like that, except… well, more _real_, I suppose.

"After those faded, my hearing went. Even the faint little ring you hear when you think there's absolute silence. Even that. And… and the weirdest part is that you can still see. Even through all of this, you're still seeing everything fine. You're stone deaf, totally numb, too shocked to really do anything, but you can still see _everything_. And it was all in perfect clarity, something I've never really experienced outside of dying. It's… very disorienting—sickly, almost, but sort of calming as well.

"But then your vision fades. That's the scariest part. You're so used to it, and then it just leaves…" Kaji took a shaken breath. His knuckles were turning white from how heavily he gripped his head. He probably didn't even realize it.

"And then there's nothing." His whisper was gravel across the bed of a stone quarry. "There's nothing." He repeated it again. "Nothing. There's just… black. There's no sound. There's no movement. There's nothing to see or feel or anything. And you're never sure exactly _when_ your heart stopped beating, or _when_ your brain actually died, or—whatever. The only thing you're sure of is the fact that—that—"

Asuka's motionless form observed him in silence. She observed a frightened man.

He calmed himself, briefly. "The only thing you're sure of is the fact that you'll never see anything again. Or hear anything again. You'll never do anything again. And you can't move or talk as it is. It's just an endless void. Nothing at all."

He let out a long, tiring sigh.

"You said you came back?" Her voice was quiet amid the cavernous silence that reigned.

She couldn't tell if it was a snort or a short chuckle that he coughed out. "I did. Yes." He nodded, and finally looked up at her. "You're right."

She squinted at him queerly, and he sighed again.

He continued: "At first I didn't even know what was happening. In fact, the only reason I _do_ know what happened is because it happened so many times—and, of course, this place… I don't understand this place. It mucks with your mind."

"It's outside of where you're used to being." Her response was calm and calculated. She peered away from him, her eyes dancing across the gratuitous amount of graffiti on the walls.

"I realized that upstairs. I found that I could remember everything—but… it's all sort of mish mashed up here." He tapped his forehead. "I can't quite tell what happened from which lifetime. It's all blurred together."

"Hmm." A noncommittal grunt. She turned away and moved back to her bench.

"How'd you get here, Asuka?" Since they'd been in conversation anyway, he might as well ask the question that'd been nagging at him for god knows how long.

"I built this place." She said.

"You _built_ it?"

"Your hearing obviously works." Her scoff reminded him of her old self. "Yes, I built it. Once you understand it all, it's really quite easy."

"Understand it all? What are you talking about?" He rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

She grinned vacantly as her gaze settled across the tracks yet again. "You don't _honestly_ think that anything is real anymore, do you?"

---------------------------------------------

Rei returned to the auditorium to retrieve her viola. Kaworu followed her, returning the doors of the auditorium to their rightful places as he passed. He might as well, since this place was his to control.

"What are you getting?" It was a simple question, and one he already knew the answer to.

"A solution."

Why did she _always _need to be so damn ambiguous?

He frowned, and scrunched his eyebrows in concern. She wasn't going to…? No. Impossible. She couldn't have figured out the loophole so quickly.

She brushed past him and stood in the hallway, a bloodied arm clutching the neck of the viola, the other lightly holding the bow. She narrowed her eyes. These were pieces of the puzzle, she was sure. But how did they go together?

------------------------------------------------

After a long silence, Kaji had to ask the question that had been bothering him for quite some time.

"Asuka," he started, and looked over at where she sat on the bench; legs crossed, arms across her chest, her head turned so that she could stare down the tunnel. When she didn't respond, he continued. "Do you… do you plan on dying here?"

It almost looked as if her shoulders slumped the tiniest bit. She turned toward a wall, her pupils dancing across the unreadable lines of layered graffiti.

"I… don't know." Her voice was distant, unreachable. "Everything is clouded." She blinked, a motion that made it seem as though she pulled herself back into her own skull. She looked over at Kaji. "Anyway, isn't about time for you to be getting some shuteye?"

Before he could even begin to understand it, he slipped into unconsciousness.

--------------------------------------------

Shinji sat in the subway car.

"Please, someone help me. I don't know what to do."

The only response was the railcar's monotonous heartbeat-like swaying.

"I'm so _weak_."

------------------------------------------

The epiphany was a single heartbeat of staccato.

Rei gazed over at Kaworu. He stared at her oddly.

It was so _simple_.

She held the instrument and the bow in the same hand, and pointed it at Nagisa. He stepped back.

"No," he said. "You couldn't have figured it out so soon—"

And the hairs on the bow all snapped and melded into the wood, and the viola dripped and crystallized around the bow, and it sprouted long; twisting and contorting the space of the obnoxiously illusionary hallway. Cracks sprouted along the walls—stress cracks from a steadily breaking mirror. They weaved and sprouted through everything except her, snapping up surfaces, spiraling up Kaworu's legs. He screamed in pain as they tore through his flesh, scaring every inch of him, geysers of blood gushing out of the crevices. His screams blended into the hideous breaking noise.

And then everything shattered. There was blackness all around. There was only her, and a beaten, bleeding, very sore, very _powerless_, Kaworu Nagisa. He shivered on the floor more out of pain than defeat.

"Congratulations, Rei." His voice was mirthless, but it still carried an undertone of honor. "You found the Lance."

She dropped the Lance of Longinus, and it stuck in the floor like a tombstone. Stairs appeared in front of where it lay impaled, leading down into the opaque black. A light breeze floated upwards.

Without another word, she descended the stairs.

---

Rei limped downwards. The stairs had transformed from narrow and cramped to rather spacious in only a few steps. It wasn't long after that when she realized that the fluorescent lighting was coming from the subway station just around the bend. It looked very decrepit.

The first thing she noticed was Kaji Ryoji's dejected form leaned up against a dirty, defaced, tile wall. He didn't move. Perhaps it was simply that he _couldn't_ move, in this place.

A subway car whooshed by, a strong gust of wind blowing the tatters of her school uniform around for a bit, strands of her hair bouncing to and fro about her forehead and getting in her eyes. Newspapers twirled around in a laughable dance. Graffiti could only watch from the walls, and observe.

Sorhyu was on the bench. She knew Rei had arrived. Rei knew that she knew she had arrived.

"So, the First has finally decided to join us." Asuka stood up and turned to face her. She planted a hand firmly on her own hip, striking her arrogantly familiar pose. "Or should I say the Second?"

"I am not a doll." She whispered.

Asuka's scrunched her eyebrows for a moment, then quickly glanced at a section of the graffiti-ridden wall, scanning the seemingly unreadable gibberish. She scoffed. "Oh, right. I see now."

"I am Rei."

Asuka's dismissive wave was perfectly characteristic. "Yeah, I know. I know."

Rei glanced at Kaji. "What is he doing here?"

"Don't worry about him. He's so out of it that he won't pose any problem at all." Asuka paced the length of the station to stare down at his sleeping—or comatose—form. "We can pretend that he isn't here. He's in such a deep sleep; I doubt another Impact could wake him." Her gaze settled on the trail of drying blood that ran down Rei's arm. "Say, you're bleeding. Was Nagisa really that much of a handful?"

"I was in his world. I could not control things there." She diverted her own stare to walls with graffiti. "I apologize for being trapped for so long."

Asuka sent her a suspicious glance. "He isn't going to come following you down, is he?" She narrowed her eyes. "If he does, you know what must be done."

Rei shook her head. "If he does, I understand where my place is."

"Good." Asuka strode back over to her bench. "And Shinji? You're sure he knows what to do?"

"I did all I could while I was in his world. But I'm afraid that my absence allowed Nagisa to warp some things."

Asuka sighed in frustration. "So you're saying that you know jack shit."

Rei dismissed her annoyance. "Everything is going as it should. It is all on schedule."

"I hope you're right, First."

All the assurance she needed was in the crimson stare.

---

Lights flashed by in the darkened expanse of the infinite tunnel.

He sighed. "I'm only delaying the inevitable, aren't I?" His soft voice did not echo in the tiny rail car.

"Maybe… maybe I don't have to leave. Do I really have to do something like that if I don't _want _to?" His fingers ran across his face as his hands gripped his head.

He winced. "No… that isn't right."

He stayed like that; crouched over on a bench in the nameless, destination-less train car, rocking back and forth in slow monotony, while the mechanical contraption sped ever forwards like the hammer of a gun. He did not want to move. He did not want to decide. He only wanted to be left alone, and this place provided that. That was okay, wasn't it?

He sighed again. He knew that something had to be done. Others were counting on him.

"Stop the train."

And the world stopped.

---

Screeches from the tunnel heralded the coming of another tram. A pair of lights at the far end turned a corner, and were now rushing with all the urgency of the apocalypse toward the only station on the entire loop line.

There was no engineer at the controls.

There were no bings of warning as stations approached.

There was no yellow line to stand back from.

There was only the obscenely piercing screech of breaks as the subway train brought itself from infinite speed to absolute zero in the space of several meters. The station filled with noise and sparks. The car warped and twisted and distorted out of shape.

Its only occupant let out a panicked scream as his body suffered the same distortion of space and reality, only to have all the rules come snapping back into place like a rubber band. The reality of this place retained its coherency once more.

There was a moment of silence as everything caught its breath.

The doors hissed open with a soft hydraulic hiss. Somewhere, Shinji Ikari swore he heard the words "Thank you for riding the Tokyo-3 loop line." But that could just as well have been his imagination.

He picked himself off the rotting seat cushion, and haltingly approached the door.

And then he realized the obscene truth of it all.

And he wished that he could glimpse the blue sky just once more.

"Shinji."

"Ik… Shinji."

He stepped off the train. The doors whooshed shut, and the train took off in an unnoticed cacophony of wind and noise. Zero to infinity in no time at all.

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.

"You're… you're both real… aren't you?"

Asuka grinned.

Rei almost smiled.

And Shinji Ikari suddenly felt like the butt end of a cruel, sick, hilariously ironic joke.

---

"You wanna start, First?" Asuka remained seated, cross-legged, her rich amber hair scattered around her shoulders like beautiful, pearlescent seaweed.

Rei nodded, and stepped toward Shinji. Shinji tried to take a step back, but found that he was at the edge of the platform already.

"Ikari," Her voice was as pure as he remembered it. "Do you know where you are?"

"I—I'm in a construct of my mind, aren't I? But if that's true, then how are—how did—why are you here? Either of you? You really _are_ the real ones, aren't you?" Shinji took a step sideways, inching his way down the platform. "This—this is the Sea of LCL. I remember when you said that. That's where I am, right? The primordial soup of life! But if that's true, then I'm just imagining you, right?"

Rei glanced at Asuka. She sighed and looked away.

Rei decided to continue. "You are in limbo."

"I'm—" he paused, letting the meaning soak in. "…what?"

Asuka stood up and confronted him. "You mean you don't _remember_?"

"R-remember what?" He inched further down the platform. The other two advanced in suit.

"You decided to _fuck everything up_!" Asuka pounced him, but he jumped backwards and collided with the wall. Her hands landed on both sides of his head, trapping him. Her face was inches from his own. "It's because of _you_ that I couldn't stomach to return."

Shinji peered past her shoulder just long enough to watch Rei suddenly stare off towards the stairs. His gaze followed suit, as did Asuka's. A shadow made its way down, heralding the arrival of another.

---

"Shinji! Shinji, I'm here—"

Kaworu was cut off as Rei slammed him into the wall. "You cannot." Her voice was quieter than ever.

"What are you _doing_?" He was panicked. "He _needs_ me! I can't just abandon him!"

Rei held firm. "I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to do that."

With an anguished groan, he slammed his fist into the side of her face. It knocked her off and she reeled into the ground, slightly dazed. He spared half a second to stare down at her prone form, before quickly moving to step over it and towards the train. Instead, he found himself hurtling groundside as Rei snagged his ankle and pulled with all her strength. Blood spattered on the cement.

"I told you," Her quiet voice was strained. "I do not enjoy it, but he must go through with it—"

"He must go _through_ with it?" Kaworu groaned and tried to pick himself up, but found all of Rei's weight pressed against his back, pinning his wrists. "He's suffering! We need—I need to help him! He doesn't have to do anything if he doesn't _want_ to!"

She remained stoic. "You cannot."

He groped for one of the cracked portions of the concrete, dislodging a small chunk quick enough to lob it into the side of her head. It broke the skin, and might've even given her a concussion. She fell to the side with a yelp as he dropped the weapon and ran toward the opposite end of the station. Each step seemed to make the station elongate, another warping of reality. It only spurred him on, until the same fragment of cement slammed into the back of his skull. He collapsed to the ground, throwing his hands out to brace his impact. He never really felt himself hit the ground, though, thanks to the piece of debris that had shattered upon impact. Rei was upon him unnaturally fast, and she threw him up against the back wall, taking advantage of his daze.

"Shinji…" His speech was labored and aimless.

He couldn't afford Shinji to change things. Everything would be lost if that happened.

_Everything_.

---

"You can't keep me here!" She slammed his shoulders into a wall of the station. "Why can't you just make your mind up already?!"

"But Asuka—I don't even know what you're talking about!"

"Shut up!" Her scream pierced his ears. "Shut up! Just shut the hell up! Instrumentality, you dolt! What the _fuck_ else would I be referring to?! Use your head!"

"But—but I can't! Rei help me! Please! You swore you'd protect me—"

"Don't go begging to the _First_, Ikari!" Asuka threw him across the railcar. The side of his face slammed into a nearby pillar and his leg got caught on the side of a decrepid, metal bench. The sharp edges of the bench tore open his pant leg and sliced through the skin on his calf. He screamed in pain. "This is _your_ decision, not _anyone _else's"

He whimpered for a few moments, and gazed around the station. A disheveled and bleeding Rei pinned a horribly beaten Kaworu to a wall. They were both watching the scene intently.

"Rei. Please…"

Her face wore the saddest expression he had ever seen, and it frightened him.

"Still begging for help?" Asuka hadn't moved from the far end of the car. Her cold, her dead cold eyes hadn't moved from his prone form. "_Still_ begging for help from _her_?" She grew more enraged with each syllable.

Damn she was fast.

Kaworu called out to him and struggled against Rei, but was again pinned against the wall. He couldn't get to Shinji.

Another tram came, and it stopped. It looked identical to the one Shinji rode in on. An idle thought occurred to him as he noticed it stop abruptly: maybe it was the same one.

He ran towards it, just barely making it through the doors before Asuka's outstretched hands reached him. She tackled him to the floor in an attempt to pin him down, but his panicked state lashed out at her, tossing her into the isle of the railcar. She grunted in frustration, and pulled him off the ground, throwing him into one of the windows.

Shinji heard his name called as he was thrown up against one of the windows. The blood that remained dripping down the glass was probably from the nose he had just had broken. Asuka's assault was relentless.

"Break this all down, Ikari!" Asuka's voice was painfully soft; a whispered wildfire, dangerously close to his right ear. She had him pinned. He couldn't escape. "Tear it down! Stop it all! You can't—we can't—none of us can keep going like this! Humans weren't meant for this! _You are _not _a god!_" Asuka threw him down finally, releasing the hold. She huffed and sat down in a ruined seat.

He curled up on the floor. He was crying. He was so weak.

Her breathing was labored. She stared at him. Her red hair glinted strangely in the glare of the oppressive, fluorescent lighting.

"Kaworu…" His whimper could barely have been heard. "Kaworu said I didn't have to do anything anymore. He said—he said that everything could all just stay like it was." He still hadn't moved his head from beneath his arms. He was _so goddamn weak_.

Asuka looked at Shinji through an unreadable expression. "Do you know why, don't you?" Her voice changed. It was so soft, now. So… uncharacteristic.

"Because—because Kaworu cares about me!" He coughed into himself, curling even tighter into a fetal position. So _weak_. "None of you ever did!" He couldn't even make eye contact.

Asuka's expression changed into fury. "You _idiot_!" Her scream echoed out of the tram car. "Why do you think we're _doing_ this? Do you think we _like_ this? How _dense _are you?"

---

Kaworu couldn't hear much of what was being said inside the subway car. He was pinned against the wall. He couldn't win here. All of the rules were stacked against him.

"Shinji!" He yelled as loud as he could, hoping his voice could reach him. How did the subway car get so far away? Had the station always been this cavernous? "Shinji, don't listen to her! Whatever she's saying, she's lying! She always lied to you before, didn't she?" It was his last hope.

Rei forced him off the wall, and then slammed him back into it swiftly. He grunted as his head made another brutal collision with the wall.

"Don't speak. Don't say anything." Her voice was still the same… except for the odd—could it be _dangerous?_—undertone. Her gaze bored holes into his.

He weighed his options quickly.

He decided to continue. "Shinji! I love you! I'm the only person to have ever said that to you! Don't you remember? Don't you remember me—" He was suddenly cut off as Rei shoved him sideways and into the ground. He was too drained to really fight back at this point.

---

"Kaworu? Kaworu!" Shinji picked himself up off the floor of the railcar and gazed through the window. "Kaworu always cared about me!" His foot snagged on something in the floor, and he fell out of the railcar. Asuka leapt out behind him. The railcar jolted into infinity immeasurable fractions of a second later.

He felt so weak right now.

Asuka stood in front of him. "Kaworu manipulated you." Her voice was so cold.

"No! He cared!" Shinji's strained voice cracked as he shrieked to maintain his perspective.

"Did he?"

He glanced over at Kaworu, who still lay pinned against the wall. Rei's grip did not falter.

He felt very weak.

"He's willing to let you sustain this blatant lie, Shinji. Why can't you wake up? Are you _that_ cowardly?"

_So… _

She continued, but her voice was starting to fade and become so far away, like a distant bird call at the far edge of hearing. "When are you going to realize that you have control now? You don't _need_ the illusion! Kaworu wants it for his _own_ ends! He's just using you like _your father used you_."

…_very…_

And everything sort of blurred, and the voices became very muffled, and it all seemed like he was underwater in a gigantic aquarium. He could sort of tell that her lips were moving, but he could barely make out her words. Maybe it didn't matter anymore. Maybe all of it….

…_weak._


	7. One More Final

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Neon Genesis: Evangelion.

* * *

**ONE MORE FINAL: AN EPIPHANY AMIDST THE INFINITY OF THOUGHTS**

Surrounded on all sides by nothing.

"I've never known what to do. Everyone's always told me what to do or ordered me around or manipulated me—and I've always known that, but I never really wanted that to change. I was afraid of change. Change always hurt. Always. So… I thought that it'd be best if everything remained the same. Then I would always _know_ what was going to happen. There was no risk of getting hurt again, since I already knew when I was supposed to get hurt. It'd be boring, but… at least… at least I'd be safer that way."

"But what about the people you condemned to relive their lives?"

—_Ikari, did you try to understand?—_

"They—it—it didn't matter! They forced themselves on me every chance they had!"

"You _idiot_! It only seemed like that because you never tried to stand up for _yourself_!"

—_Of course that stupid Shinji isn't here!—_

"But… I guess you're right. I never did that because I never wanted to. That meant responsibility—and I could handle that, except that… well, the concept of freedom is scary."

"But Shinji… if you don't look after yourself, how are you going to survive?"

—_We'll do the rest when you get back.—_

"Maybe I'm just not fit to survive."

"Incorrect."

—_I have a use for you.— _

"All I ever wanted was to be left alone. I never asked for any of this. I never wanted—"

"_There_ you go again, playing the martyr! Don't you get _sick_ of being so self involved?"

—_Wimp.—_

"But I'm not self involved! Everyone else is just against me! They've always been like that! It isn't my fault! Don't be like that! I… never asked for anything, and everyone… everyone… oh…"

"Do you understand, now?"

—_So, you can't bridge the gap between others' reality and your own truth.—_

"No! It _isn't_ my fault! How can it be?! I… no… I never… I didn't…"

—"_Go ahead, run away again!"_

—"_If you don't like it, you can always run away."_

—"_If it's that painful, you can always stop."_

"Stop."

—"_Go ahead, run away again!"_

—"_If you don't like it, you can always run away."_

—"_If it's that painful, you can always stop."_

"Stop!"

—"_Go ahead, run away again!"_

—"_If you don't like it, you can always run away."_

—"_If it's that painful, you can always stop."_

"_I'm not running away!_"

And in the flash of light that consumed the darkened emptiness, epiphany exploded into the only real person on the planet.

Everything finally made sense.

-----------------------------------------------------

Shinji stared up at the stars in the naked sky. A ruined necropolis rose out of the settled dust and fog in the distance. A ring of blood tore the sky in two. The face of a dead dream smiled eerily on the horizon. The crucifixions of false hopes littered the ground.

Everything was gone. There was nothing left. Why continue living? Was this _really_ what he wanted?

Starlight and the pale moon illuminated the dead earthen plain. Only the sea of dawn made any sounds.

His gaze led his sight out across the vast, red ocean.

And an ordinary boy spied an ordinary girl from across the way, but she disappeared in a gust of wind.

She breathed beside him. She was still _breathing_.

He was still breathing.

He grabbed a hold of her throat and squeezed. If they had only listened to him, none of this would have had to happen. If they had only been nice. If they had only offered. If they had only—

She caressed his cheek. Her fingers were velvet. Her face was an open door. Maybe, he realized, if people just tried to be reasonable for once, humanity wouldn't be so bad after all.

And it made him cry.

"_How disgusting._"


End file.
